December 16th. 2005Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

You report (Voting system said to fail test, Globe, December 16th., page A44) that the Diebold company suggested that testing a voting machine to see whether it could be hacked was "a very foolish and irresponsible act." Why is it irresponsible to check whether a supplier's product works as advertised? It would be irresponsible not to do so.

Does that mean that Diebold's manufacturing plants do not test or inspect the inputs they receive from their suppliers? I hope not!